Just a Quickie
by Totally-T3ii3
Summary: A swift two-shot. It takes Sherlock all of thirty seconds to solve my murder.  Written for a prompt on dA. Reviews appreciated. Rating for implied bloodiness and possibly adult theme's.
1. The Crime Scene

Written from a prompt on dA._  
>"Choose a scene and method of death, then write out what Sherlock would deduce if he found your body. Pick clothes you actually own, and a couple things you might have had with you. You know my methods. Apply them. It can be humorous, angsty, your choice. I just figured it'd be a fun exercise in deduction and logic. I've always wondered what he'd say if he took on my case."<em>

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><p>"Well, now, <em>this <em>is a puzzle, isn't it?" Sherlock Holmes mused, skirting around the corpse that was sprawled face-down on the plush, cranberry orient rug.

"To say the least. _Christ _how did she manage to do this to herself?" John Watson blanched, feeling sympathetic for the victim, then wiping his hand over his face, staring at the body.

"We can't imagine." Detective Inspector Lestrade said, frowning, "The owners don't even know her."

"Or so that say." Sherlock murmured, but if the other two men in the room heard, they paid no attention to it.

"Then how did she get in?" John asked.

"And when. They were home all last night. The hired help- you know butler, and maid?- can vouch for that. No one saw or _heard _anything." Lestrade shook his head, "It's a right mystery. That's why I called you two."

"Any idea's, Sherlock?" Watson asked, turning to face his companion, who was walking circles around the victim. Analyzing everything.

"If you'd be quiet and let me _think_ I could tell you." Sherlock snapped back at them.

"Right. Sorry." Lestrade quipped, intent on falling silent.

"_Lestrade_." Holmes glared, and to this the Detective Inspector acted on his intentions, and fell silent, watching the mad genius wildly walk 'round the corpse. His eyes moving a mile a minute, his head bent with his body tilted to the left, inward over the corpse. Watson suspected if he kept on like that he'd get dizzy and collapse.

For a long while no one spoke, the silence in the room was thick and heavy, just like the metallic tang of blood that danced around their nostrils. John and Lestrade watched him, both accustomed to his methods, waiting for the solution to spring into his mind. Eventually he would fill them in too, and John could probably get home to go on a date with Sarah before it got too late. Lately all of Sherlock's cases had been _elementary_. Suddenly, Sherlock threw himself to the floor, and his knee's hit the carpet with a sharp jolt that caused both the other men in the room to look startled, and come back to attention.

"The cause of death was not asphyxiation." he said, finally, his body now on all fours, looming over the corpse, his face also dangerously close to the victim's blood-spattered one, and John was glad he was a medical man and not at all squeamish or he might have vomited due to their proximity.

"Well of _course _it wasn't!" Lestrade gushed, flabbergasted at the suggestion which had been rolled out hours ago.

Sherlock ignored him, "What is the PMI?"

"Nearly twenty four hours." Lestrade said.

"They missed the body in their study for a whole day?" John asked, staring in shock and disbelief.

Lestrade shrugged, "Apparently this room is often locked and empty. Only used for entertaining guests, or something."

"Who was on forensics?" Sherlock asked suddenly, interrupting their discussion.

"Anderso-"

"_Well_, that explains why you're so shocked." Holmes sniffed, and stood suddenly, "The girl was killed eighteen hours ago, almost exactly. The effects of Rigor Mortis have begun to fade, and her eyes are particularly _soft_," he said, smearing something suspiciously looking like mucus, or opaque jelly off of the index finger of his glove into his handkerchief, then pocketed that.

"Just because he's not a machine like you doesn't mea-"

"Let's bicker over this later, hm? A young lady has been brutally murdered and I do not want to postpone her investigation." Sherlock waved a hand and silenced the Detective Inspector, "Now, what was found on the body?"

"A purse," Lestrade said and motioned to the orange-and-brown-tribal-looking bag that sat, opened, on the massive roll-top desk next to the corpse, "Within which there is a make up bag consisting of a compact, two cases of eye-shadow, and four viles of mascar-"

"_Obviously_ the lady wears make-up. Look at her face, it's layered with powder. What else was in the bag?" Sherlock said, waving away the possibility of her make-up having anything to do with the murder.

"A walle-"

"Now _that _could yield some results." Holmes closed the space between himself and the purse in less than two strides, he jammed his hand within and came back with a green faux-leather wallet. He opened it, inspected the pastel polka-dotted interior briskly.

"Useless. Useless. Useless." he chided, flicking away cards that she'd had stuffed inside, "Ah. Her ID." he said, and pulled it out, carelessly dropping the wallet on the purse.

Watson approached to Holmes' right, and peered at the ID, "The girl in this picture hardly looks like her."

The girl in the photo had long, straight blonde hair (_dyed, obviously if one took a look at the top of her head which was beginning to look a bit dark_) and wide green-blue eyes, she wore a plaid shirt with the collar popped up, and obnoxious bronze feather earnings. Her hair was parted, and her bangs lay over her left eye. The girl on the floor wore a pair of faded blue jeans, and the remnants of a white t-shirt, both of which were stained with blood. Her hair was now uncontrollably curly (_a perm, only three weeks old judging by the frizz cause by London weather_) and the piercings in her earlobes had closed, her fingers were decorated with multiple tribal-themed rings. She was quite large, both taller than John, and easily wider than Sherlock (_of course she was a bit overweight, she had a fondness for pastries, as could be told from the multiple reciepts jammed into her wallet where he money 'ought to be, but wasn't._)

"The hair may be different, John, but it is obviously the same girl. Kelsie Doyle." Sherlock nodded, eyes flickering from the corpse to the photo of the girl.

"What an _odd_ way to spell it, don't you think?" Lestrade quipped, now on Sherlock's left.

Sherlock ignored his comment, "Well, she's perfectly ordinary."

"We ran a check on her, she's from America. She's also got Bipol-"

"That's all obvious and irrelevant, Lestrade!" Holmes scoffed, and knelt back down next to the corpse, "She's twenty-one, a student that's come abroad for recreational purposes."

"That's all very good but what is an American student doing _here_? In _March_? Shouldn't she be in school?" Lestrade asked, frowning.

Sherlock ignored him, and the room lapsed into silence again. Finally he stood, "This is an incredibly simple case. There are only a few points I have not figured out, I am sure those will be explained momentarily."

"What is it, Sherlock?" John asked.

Sherlock drew out his magnifying glass, and ran it along the blood splatters of the body, examining the inside of her fatal wound. The he stood, and turned to his flatmate, "You will see." He took a few more moments to glance at the corpse before finally looking at Lestrade, "You may remove the body, I'd like an autopsy before exposing my theories to you. I might be wrong. Come along, John."

The two men left the scene quickly. Lestrade snorted, "_Right_, like Sherlock Holmes is ever wrong."

~.|.~

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><p>Couldn't think of how I'd ever get over to London to be found dead though :P That was a bit tricky. I think this made it work though.<p>

Sorry if you don't agree with herbal remedies and holistic medicine, just take this at face value for a little murder mystery. There will be heavy references to them in the next chapter. I'm a bit of a nutter when it comes to herbs. All of the information in Chapter 2 is also accurate, to my own research at least. If you can find anything to contradict it, shoot me a message and I'd be glad to amend the story.


	2. Case Closed

"Holmes," Lestrade burst into 221B without warning just two hours after alerting Sherlock and bringing him to the crime scene, "Holmes! You better have a _damn_ good reason for not telling me what would be found in the autopsy!"

"So it _was _belladonna then!" Sherlock cried, leaping to his feet.

"What was it _doing_ there?" Lestrade shouted, "No one even uses that bloody stuff anymore. Not anyone but druggies, and those crazy holistic's!"

"Ah, but, Lestrade she did believe in holistic medication." Holmes quipped, one hand poised in the air, as if Lestrade was a violin he intended to pluck at the strings to make him sing. Or, curse and rave and go mental. The latter was much more likely.

"Explain yourself!" Lestrade cried, and sat down in the chair opposite of Sherlock, "You didn't withhold evidence, you withheld information! I'm not sure which is worse! You couldn't give me an inkling- a smidge- just a little teaser of what you were expecting?"

Sherlock leaned back, steapled his fingers under his chin and surveyed the Detective Inspector with amusement.

"You said this was murder." Lestrade said through clenched teeth, trying to calm down.

"Indeed it is." Sherlock nodded.

"Then why was it relevant that she was interested in holistic medication, and using belladonna for God-knows-what."

"God, indeed." Sherlock sniffed at the very notion, but let it drop and continued, "Belladonna was widely regarded a wonder-herb which controled a woman's menstrual symptoms."

"What's her period got to do with her entire _middle_ being blown out?" Lestrade shouted, his face now an interesting hue of red and purple, his lips quivering comically to keep the curses at bay, under his nose.

"_Everything_." Sherlock cried and hopped to his feet, "I began researching the effects of belladonna to the Central Nervous System when you mentioned she had Bipolar Disorder, a common-enough disorder, but being as she was obviously not using Lithium to control-"

"How did you know she wasn't using Lithium?" Lestrade asked, eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Isn't is _obvious_, Lestrade? Her entire center was gaping open I did manage to see her intestines and what was left of her stomach, the organs were perfectly healthy, albeit a little _brown_ due to their exposure to the air. I _looked_ and I _observed_. The organs were in tact and healthy, she obviously did not use Lithium to control her Disorder, too much contact with it would have caused her stomach to show signs of very early deterioration, as is common-place for hard metals when ingested."

Lestrade frowned, not sure how or why Sherlock knew all of that, and in the end decided he didn't even care. He pressed his lips together, exhaled heavily, and muttered, "_Anyway_. Continue."

"Because she was not using Lithium I thought she might be interested in holistic medication, an autopsy needed run to make sure I was correct."

"How did you know she was... uh... on her cycle?"

"Please, Lestrade, you can be so dense. I won't waste my time on that question. Now, listen to me. Really, listen! Belladonna is not approved in the United States for treatment of _anything _unless being used with pharmaceutical intent:1037 parts hyoscyamine to 194 parts atropine and 65 parts scopolamine! _Obviously_, I deduced she had no reason to be here other than to be purchasing some form of holistic medication-"

"How on EARTH did you deduce that?" Lestrade sighed, leaning bonelessly back into the arm chair, deciding to just let Sherlock go because eventually he could reel him back in and maybe get some answers.

Sherlock rolled his eyes, "What must it be like in that hole between your ears? My God. Do you even use your brain? Ever?"

At that moment John entered, and blinked, "Oh, it was belladonna, was it?" he asked, hanging up his coat and coming into the sitting room.

"Indeed it was, doctor!" Sherlock cried triumphantly, "Which means my hypothesis on her being here for recreational purposes has been proven correct."

"Fantastic!" John smiled at his friend, and took a seat on the chair next to Lestrade.

"How did he know she was here for holistic reasons?" Lestrade sighed.

"Whenever you rule out the obvious whatever remains, however improbable, must be the solution." Holmes said, "She was not a tourist, she had no copy of London A-to-Z, she is not native, she had no business in that house, she was not a thief, she was not any other possible description befitting her, so therefore she must have been here for a whole other reason. What reason? To meet a long-distance friend? Possible. But then the question arises: why would she be in that house? So, no. She was looking for something she needed, something she believed would help her, and because she does not monitor her disorder with Lithium, she must monitor it another way. How? Obviously it must have been holistic. There are only three possible ways to monitor the chemicals in one's brain. There, motive. Many holistic treatments are banned by the American Federal Drug Administration, so she has to purchase them online, or go abroad, her passport revealed several similar trips made to Japan, and Denmark for similar reaso-"

"How can you deduce she went to those places for herbs? That's a lot of money to waste!" Lestrade interrupted.

"Do your own research on holistic medication." Sherlock sniffed, and then went back to his speech before he had been so rudely interrupted, "As I was saying: she has done this before. She is no stranger to searching in unwelcoming places for what she wants. Belladonna is not easily acquired here, in London, either. The state of her complexion, and the blunt, flat edge of her fingers shows she types very often, as does the model of her cell phone, the woman breathes the internet, Lestrade. She must have found a _provider _on the internet and come to purchase it. I suspect a through investigation of the home where she was found will yield incriminating results. Also, search their home for an unregistered shotgun, that will be your murder weapon."

"We thought her body had been taken from somewhere else to the house, Holmes. The room was too _clean_ for a murder to have occurred there. Especially with a shotgun. Those things make a right mess." Lestrade said.

"The rug she was found on was not the rug she was killed on. Evidently the rug she was found on was six-inches smaller in width than the rug she was killed on. That rug is probably burned by now, however a going-over with a black light in that room will expose the blood stains that are not so easily taken away by cleaning supplies."

"Bloody brilliant!" John cried, slapping his knee, "I could never have thought of something like that, you know! Pure genius!"

Sherlock smiled smugly at his friend's praise, his eyes then turned onto the Detective Inspector, "The murderer is the lady of the house, I have no doubt of that, Lestrade. I will send you an e-mail of my research, and you can type it up in your report. I do hope you won't trouble me again with such an _obvious_ case."

Sherlock shut the door on Lestrade as he left.

John let out a loud laugh, "That took you less than thirty minutes, you know."

Sherlock settled down into his chair, opposite John, "I didn't even need one patch for it. It was simple. Dull, actually."

John laughed too, "Just a quickie then?"

Sherlock blinked, perplexed by the euphemism, "Excuse me?"

"Nothing," John said, smiling at his friend's lack of knowledge, "Don't worry about it."

~.|.~

The End.

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><p>Again, sorry for the holistic references. They're a bit bias, admittedly. All of the information in this fic is accurate, to my own research at least. If you can find anything to contradict it, shoot me a message and I'd be glad to amend the story.<p> 


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